How to mask all but last four characters in a string - ruby

Question

I've been attempting a coding exercise to mask all but the last four digits or characters of any input.
I think my solution works but it seems a bit clumsy. Does anyone have ideas about how to refactor it?
Here's my code:
def mask(string)
z = string.to_s.length
if z <= 4
return string
elsif z > 4
array = []
string1 = string.to_s.chars
string1[0..((z-1)-4)].each do |s|
array << "#"
end
array << string1[(z-4)..(z-1)]
puts array.join(", ").delete(", ").inspect
end
end

Answer 1

positive lookahead
A positive lookahead makes it pretty easy. If any character is followed by at least 4 characters, it gets replaced :
"654321".gsub(/.(?=.{4})/,'#')
# "##4321"
Here's a description of the regex :
r = /
. # Just one character
(?= # which must be followed by
.{4} # 4 characters
) #
/x # free-spacing mode, allows comments inside regex
Note that the regex only matches one character at a time, even though it needs to check up to 5 characters for each match :
"654321".scan(r)
# => ["6", "5"]
/(.)..../ wouldn't work, because it would consume 5 characters for each iteration :
"654321".scan(/(.)..../)
# => [["6"]]
"abcdefghij".scan(/(.)..../)
# => [["a"], ["f"]]
If you want to parametrize the length of the unmasked string, you can use variable interpolation :
all_but = 4
/.(?=.{#{all_but}})/
# => /.(?=.{4})/
Code
Packing it into a method, it becomes :
def mask(string, all_but = 4, char = '#')
string.gsub(/.(?=.{#{all_but}})/, char)
end
p mask('testabcdef')
# '######cdef'
p mask('1234')
# '1234'
p mask('123')
# '123'
p mask('x')
# 'x'
You could also adapt it for sentences :
def mask(string, all_but = 4, char = '#')
string.gsub(/\w(?=\w{#{all_but}})/, char)
end
p mask('It even works for multiple words')
# "It even #orks for ####iple #ords"
Some notes about your code
string.to_s
Naming things is very important in programming, especially in dynamic languages.
string.to_s
If string is indeed a string, there shouldn't be any reason to call to_s.
If string isn't a string, you should indeed call to_s before gsub but should also rename string to a better description :
object.to_s
array.to_s
whatever.to_s
join
puts array.join(", ").delete(", ").inspect
What do you want to do exactly? You could probably just use join :
[1,2,[3,4]].join(", ").delete(", ")
# "1234"
[1,2,[3,4]].join
# "1234"
delete
Note that .delete(", ") deletes every comma and every whitespace, in any order. It doesn't only delete ", " substrings :
",a b,,, cc".delete(', ')
# "abcc"
["1,2", "3,4"].join(', ').delete(', ')
# "1234"

Answer 2

Ruby makes this sort of thing pretty trivial:
class String
def asteriskify(tail = 4, char = '#')
if (length <= tail)
self
else
char * (length - tail) + self[-tail, tail]
end
end
end
Then you can apply it like this:
"moo".asteriskify
# => "moo"
"testing".asteriskify
# => "###ting"
"password".asteriskify(5, '*')
# => "***sword"

Answer 3

Try this one
def mask(string)
string[0..-5] = '#' * (string.length - 4)
string
end
mask("12345678")
=> "####5678"

Answer 4

I will add my solution to this topic too :)
def mask(str)
str.match(/(.*)(.{4})/)
'#' * ($1 || '').size + ($2 || str)
end
mask('abcdef') # => "##cdef"
mask('x') # => "x"

Answer 5

I offer this solution mainly to remind readers that String#gsub without a block returns an enumerator.
def mask(str, nbr_unmasked, mask_char)
str.gsub(/./).with_index { |s,i| i < str.size-nbr_unmasked ? mask_char : s }
end
mask("abcdef", 4, '#')
#=> "##cdef"
mask("abcdef", 99, '#')
#=> "######"

Answer 6

Try using tap
def mask_string(str)
str.tap { |p| p[0...-4] = '#' * (p[0...-4].length) } if str.length > 4
str
end
mask_string('ABCDEF') # => ##CDEF
mask_string('AA') # => AA
mask_string('S') # => 'S'